Developed by Shiny Shoe and published by Good Shepherd, Monster Train is a roguelike deck-building game, but with a little more height. I have played my fair share of deck-building games, and there are many, and while this offers a lot of the same, it is in no way bad, because as they say, “If it isn’t broken…” and all that. There is one feature in particular that’s rather unique, and that is a multiple-level system.

The story is great as well. Heaven, Hell, and the space in-between formed the Covenant in order to maintain their harmony and longevity, triggered by previous wars and warnings of an impending Armageddon. A Railway was built that spanned from the heights of Heaven to the depths of Hell. Heaven banded together under the rule of Seraph to create this Covenant.

Hell banded together under an old human named Herzal who travelled the 9 rings of Hell to win the clans’ support in building the rail. Millennia later, Seraph invaded Hell, broke the Covenant, and destroyed the Pyre after a long battle with Hell. Now the residents of Hell have been cast out of their homes and are fighting to return. If Hell loses, a treacherous and immoral Heaven will reign supreme, eradicating any trace of Hell and those that lived within it.

The basics of Monster Train are simple. You pick a path the train takes, visit various shops to add more cards or enhance your monsters and spells, collect a variety of boons at random encounters, and gamble pyre health or coins for random rewards.

At the end of the path, you use your deck to stop the legions of Heaven from getting to your Pyre crystal shard and destroying it. You start with two Clans, Hellhorn and Awoken, and to relate them to something that may be more familiar, I think of it in terms of Magic The Gathering.

Hellhorn are Fire-based, like your red deck, and Awoken is your Green deck, or forest/plant-based. As you progress you will unlock the other clans, and the more you use one clan, the more it will level up, unlocking new champions and other cards allowing for new strategies. However, they don’t always synergise well, making the secondary clan pretty useless in some cases.

There are two other game modes; Challenges and Hell Rush. In the Hell Rush, a multiplayer mode, eight players compete in a frantic real-time contest. Each player has the same resources to create a level playing field. With the clock ticking, it’s a test of who can make the best decisions under pressure. There are two Challenge types, Custom and Daily.

In Custom, you design your unique challenge and share it with friends, and each custom challenge has a leaderboard so that you can compete to see who the Monster Train master is. In Daily Challenges, you take on a new challenge every day, with each run significantly modified by gameplay mutators. You’ll compete globally and against friends and climb the leaderboards with a skill-focused scoring system.

The music changes all the time, which is a pleasant change from most games in this genre, and it brings up the track name at the beginning of the combat stage. There are grunts and ability sound effects, none of which sound silly, overpower, or distract from the game. Other than that, there is not much to touch on. The game sounds great to me. Visually, everything looks great as well.

hen you summon your monsters, they actually look like the image on the cards. It’s nothing flashy, but for me, it ticks most of the boxes. It’s enjoyable to play, and never while playing did I ever complain about visuals, sound, frame drops or stuttering. While I have heard of a few issues on PC, so far on the PlayStation 5, I have had no issues whatsoever.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and it will become one of my go-to games when I just want to chill and have a good time. The game is simple to pick up, easy to learn, and it tests your strategy skills because it gets difficult quickly – most times out of nowhere. Of course, the game is not perfect and more could be added, but if you actually play through the game and upgrade your clans, more and more possibilities are made and the game elevates itself. I assure you, if you like deck builders, you will like this game as well, so give it a try, and if you don’t like it, “Well then, there is no pleasing you.” – Goldmember.

Written by: Adam Brasher